You know you’re atmospherically at a Good Charlotte concert when your whole night is consistently made up of endless chants and passionate arm waves.

The boys from Maryland definitely made a grand entrance, opening with any true Good Charlotte  favourite, The Anthem.

The band conveyed their gratitude towards Australian fans in between songs and spoke about how they have been making music for over fifteen years now, since they were fifteen themselves.

Before performing Motivation Proclamation, a song from their first album titled Good Charlotte, frontman Joel Madden informed his audience that Australia was the first country in the world to play their music on national radio.

Guitarist Benji Madden connected with his audience by bringing forward the idea of pain and hardship as something collective and universal that can be healed with music. A powerful and passionate performance of Hold On was then delivered and dedicated to anyone in the room currently dealing with conflict in their lives.

The lights dimmed and fans were asked to pull out their ‘cell phones and lighters’ which created a peaceful Christmas-tree-like glowing atmosphere throughout the whole of Rod Laver Arena. The band disappeared and Benji appeared from the darkness carrying an acoustic guitar and announced that his return would constitute an old song just for his fans. Voices carried themselves harmoniously in the arena with a tint of alleviation while Benji sung his heart out to the song Emotionless off the album The Young and the Hopeless.

Dance Floor Anthem provoked people into waving their arms up into the air simultaneously and blissfully and it was almost as if these fans were simply born to dance for this one moment.

The audience was awarded not one, not two but three encores and the band’s current single Last Night satisfied any anticipation that had been put on hold in the midst of waiting for the encore. Fans were dumbstruck when the song Dammit by punk rockers Blink 182, emerged three quarters of the way through The Story of My Old Man.

Good Charlotte ended on a defiant note with Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous, in true accordance as to what gave this band their recognition.

Are you a vegetarian who is tired of searching the local supermarket for quality food products that you can never seem to find?

You need not look any further with the simple and quick cooking, vegetarian friendly and soy free Quorn range.

These high quality protein sourced food products are made up of amino acids that are ordinarily found in meats such as chicken or beef.

All Quorn products commonly contain mycoprotein which is a high-quality meat-free protein and is low in fat as well as being high in dietary fibre. This ingredient is also a part of the fungi family, freeing these products from any genetically modified ingredients.

These instantaneous meals range from sausages to burgers or lasagne to cottage pies and if you’re feeling anything along the lines of creative-Quorn mince. They are to be cooked in your oven, microwave or grill and there is no need to defrost these effortless meals.

Quorn meal products are available at most leading supermarkets around the country. For recipes and other facts on the Australian Quorn range, visit their website:

http://www.quorn.com.au/

With the demise of Melbourne’s much-loved iconic venue the Arthouse approaching, Melbourne rockers Kisschasy took to the stage last night for one last show.

Opening track Darkside drew in a lot of excitement which marked the beginning of the ceaseless screams and chants from the crowd.

The boys made sure to give their audience exactly what they wanted with their setlist consisting of songs from Darkside and Cara Sposa, all the way through to Seizures. If the number of old favourites performed were not enough to shock and satisfy these passionate fans then the psychedelic paintings plastered all over the walls of the venue should have done the trick.

Frontman Darren Cordeux created a kind of nostalgic atmosphere throughout the room, with his continuous references to the band’s first show ever played at The Arthouse in 2002.

Voices carried themselves around the venue for a perfect sing along to Strings and Drums, and before long it was time for the last song to be put to the speakers. These boys ended with the song that brought forward the uprise of their musical careers Do-Do’s & Whoa-Oh’s, and by this stage the whole room was screaming and chanting. They also performed an encore, another memorable blast from the past, This Bed.

If you are ever given the opportunity to see this band live it will be made clear to you, even after continuing to make music for nearly ten years, how purely talented and determined this band truly is.

Videoart.net invites talented video artists and filmmakers from around the world to enter their work into this pioneering event at the prestigious Tribeca Cinemas. The festival aims to showcase today’s most groundbreaking works of video art & experimental films. Artists are welcome to submit their work with their Online Submission form.

Submissions may be no longer than 30 minutes, and the festival will not accept entries later than May 15th. Please see their Submissions Guidelines page for detailed information.

About the festival:

The 2011 Video Art & Experimental Film Festival will take place December 8th – December 9th, 2011, at the prestigious Tribeca Cinemas. The Festival strives to showcase the artwork of today’s most groundbreaking video artists and filmmakers from around the world and bring their work to sophisticated New York City audiences. In addition to the screening, the event will feature a panel discussion lead by distinguished academics and industry professionals, followed by a gourmet food
and wine reception with the artists and panelists at the elegant Tribeca Cinema bar. Videoart.net Artistic Director Dan Fine says, “The Festival aims to shed new light on the video art genre and is an important step to democratize the relationship between artists, curators, institutions, and the public worldwide.” ]]> http://motif.swinmc.net/blog/2011/03/11/call-for-entries-video-net-art/feed/ 0 http://motif.swinmc.net/blog/2010/11/30/the-premodernists-the-pony/ http://motif.swinmc.net/blog/2010/11/30/the-premodernists-the-pony/#comments Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:46:09 +0000 banter http://motif.swinmc.net/?p=824

Its Saturday eve and the clock ticks over to ‘rock o’clock’. I put down my jazz-lover hat, garb myself in an uncharacteristically grungy outfit and set off for The Pony for the Premodernists, who are celebrating the signing of their first distribution deal with a full-length gig.

The Premodernists are a Melbourne-based indie rock band whose roots can be traced back to the various Battle of the Bands in the earlier part of 2000s. It was there that their rise in prominence began in the indie music scene. I have been familiar with the band since their inception and have grown quite fond of their earliest EP, which I still keep in my car’s 6-diskette stereo along with my Ella Fitzgerald compilations.
To me, the Premodernist feel like the illegitimate love child of The Beatles and The Pixies, albeit packaged in a much more modern context and acoustics. The kind you’d expect to find filed under the ‘alternative’ genre at your local record store.

The night opened with Avionics, a purely instrumental track with some synthetic qualities. However, as the night carried on, to my genuine surprise, I found that the Premodernists I knew have since changed, matured and become much more refined both in technicality and in style. The ‘grown-up’ Premodernists is much more grungy and punk with an almost palpable influence from bands such as Nirvana, Interpol and The Living End.

The performance was a set of 13 songs; the majority of which were quite rhythmic and dancey with the occasional instrumental intermissions. There were two covers, one of which was an extremely well-done cover of Rock the Casbah. My favorite song of the evening was the ironically titled “Savana”, which according to the band themselves, was heavily influenced by Sliverchair and Nirvana. The night ended with “Rock Lobster”- an encore and after that, the music stopped and the crowd dispersed. A satisfying end for my musical outing.

So is it good? Well, I for one do not think that the art of musical performance could be summed up in a single adjective, or as a matter of fact, any number of adjectives. The important thing is, even though I’m not an avid fan of contemporary rock music, the Premodernists got me bobbing my head along to their rhythms all through the night and after the encore, I genuinely wished they could have played just a little longer.

Overall, the band exhibited an outstanding level of technical competence and virtuosity in a scene where the majority of the bands feel that volume and eccentricity is a valid substitute for musicianship. What little criticism I have is that the band does suffer slightly from the problem where the song would start as something and turn into something different half way though. With that said however, if you liked Nirvanna, Interpol and New Order, the chance is you will also like the Premodernists.

If you’re arching your brows in disbelief and wondering aloud to yourself what could a band that’s still wet behind their ears possibly do to deserve such praise, well, , why don’t you just head off to the local record store, buy a copy of their album and hear for yourself?

Mobile phones are now a ubiquitous presence and even Facebook, within six years, has reached 500 million users. This workshop shows how anthropology in particular can contribute to the basic grounding that is urgently required in order to make a more scholarly and significant assessment of the actual impact of these new technologies. The workshop shows how we can reconnect ethnographic study of changes in our material world with broad social science and philosophical issues about the nature of humanity. Since these technologies touch on almost every aspect of social life and wider infrastructures from medicine to economics it is anticipated that the Masterclass will be of interest across many disciplinary fields.

This workshop will be held at the University of Melbourne on Wednesday Nov 24th from 2-4pm – for more details, contact Dr Violeta Schubert violetas@unimelb.edu.au

At the start of this month, Oprah announced that she was coming to Australia at the end of the year. Every news bulletin for the next two days after that included a snippet of 300+ screaming, forty-something women who might’ve had too much free champagne in their system.

So Oprah’s coming to Oz. Does anyone really care? Considering $4 million dollars is being spent to bring her here, $1.5 from the Federal Government, $2 million from NSW and up to $500 000 from us in Victoria, I guess someone out there does.

With the 300 audience members in tow, Oprah is coming down under with her entire crew, all courtesy of Captain John Travolta to film 2 shows at the Sydney Opera House (now dubbed the ‘Oprah house’.. ha ha ..)

Labelled ‘Project O’ by insiders who need to spend more time outside, Oprah’s already got her PDA out and setting the itinerary, including sipping on wine at the Barossa Valley, shopping down the Melbourne laneways and a cruise down the Great Ocean Road.

Her 2 shows are expected to draw in a crowd of 3000 ticketed sales and a broadcast audience of millions. Ticket sales, the release date of which is yet to be announced are going to be the hottest commodity going around; much more valuable compared with a ticket to the 2000 Sydney Olympics games it seems.

The price of seeing her in person can’t be less that a small fortune, surely. And how many stay at home mums, Oprah’s largest fan base, can afford that?

I suppose there are other more important economical rather than fashionable issues out there. Love her or hate her, Oprah is the most powerful woman in the world, and all the attention that she’s giving us can’t be THAT bad.

Without fail, every book she recommends makes it to #1 on the bestseller list. Every film grosses the highest at the box office. C’mon, even the politician she backs makes it to the White House! Cynic or not, Oprah’s got some rep. We can only see what the result will be once its over and done with, but without doubt, many people out there are *insert Oprah’s bellowing voice* sooooo exxciteeeddd.

Who killed Laura Palmer? Who is BOB? What the hell was going on with the Log Lady?

Hands up if you know what any of that even means. Put your other hands up if you loved Twin Peaks. Now wave them about like you just don’t care… Now stop – you look ridiculous.

In the early ’90s, David Lynch (think Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet) created a little TV show that invited viewers to observe the goings-on in a small town called Twin Peaks. The town’s more-than-a-little strange inhabitants were introduced to us in 1990, and over the next two seasons, the town (and viewers) would be haunted by the brutal murder of the homecoming queen (to this day I’m not really sure what a ‘homecoming’ is), Laura Palmer.

In the 20 years since it first went to air, Twin Peaks and its surreal depiction of American life has been the subject of countless discussions, essays, books, blog entries… well, you get the idea. So it’s only fitting that ACMI is putting on a full day of Twin Peaks awesomeness.

Part of ACMI’s Live in the Studio series, it’s happening on November 25, and will feature talks from Martyn Pedler (film critic for Triple J Magazine and University of Melbourne), Dr Saige Walton (University of Melbourne), Christian McCrea (Swinburne University), Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (La Trobe University) and Simone Hine (University of Melbourne), interspersed with screenings of classic episodes as well as the feature-length Twin Peaks film, Fire: Walk With Me.

Full details can be found here. I’ll see you there.

Human consumption process is a linear process from resources to waste, which means that, there’s almost no recycling process. Annie Leonard an American proponent of sustainability and critic of excessive consumerism take us through her 10 years research on the cycle of consumerism in the Story of Stuff.

The problem with media is that it’s nothing essential for living, yet it’s one of the most important factor to contribute to way of living. It is impossible tho to remove “media” from current era, so the concern is how do we actually make use of the media to alter the way of living, in order to preserve the sustainability of media in near future? It’s just something worth thinking about.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Three warring guilds from the Micronation of Ludea compete for territory in the heart of the city. Striking signs with curious symbols, tags, tokens, mark-ups and stickers are appearing in the laneways, inviting audiences into a game that straddles real and virtual worlds. Using on-line gaming and interventions into public spaces, join the Ludean Guilds to rezone the city!

Guild Masters include Helen Stuckey, Paul Callaghan and Darren Tofts

Where: Guildford Lane and surrounds

For information on how to play the game, visit www.urbancodemakers.net